Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 11:35 am on 24 June 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 11:35, 24 June 2020

Llywydd, the Member always manages to turn a sensible question into a piece of nonsense, as he did right at the end. So, you can be quite sure that there is no such proposal anywhere, other than in his own mind.

The points that we are making to the Treasury are just a series of sensible points. We want to have the ability to convert capital into revenue, at a time when the pressure on our revenue budgets is like it has never been before. We want greater flexibility to be able to use the Welsh reserve in a way that would allow us to respond to the conditions of a global pandemic. These are sensible measures that would allow us to manage the pressures we are under in a way that responds to them within our own resources. It's time that the rules at the Treasury caught up with the nature of devolution, and let's hope that we are able to use this opportunity to accelerate some of the thinking that has, I think, remained stuck in previous ways of doing things for too long.